Subway

So this past weekend I went camping with some friends. Before we started the drive to the mountains we stopped and got Subway. I love Subway. Let me rephrase that, I love Subway now. From the time I was in fifth grade to my freshman year in college, I refused to eat it. That's right, I went eight years avoiding Subway and forcing my family to provide me with an alternative whenever they ordered it. At some point when I was in fifth grade I acquired a serious phobia of latex gloves. Although this phobia extended to other places, I most strongly associated it with Subway. I think that was because the Subway near where we lived was really gross. Who knows though. Anyways, I had worn latex gloves before and hated the powder they left on my hands as well as the way they smelled. At some point I started to swear that I could taste the powder from the gloves on my food, more specifically on my Subway sandwiches. I know it sounds crazy now, but when I was eleven I was totally convinced. So I refused to eat at Subway, obviously, or at any other deli style place where I could see them contaminating my food with latex gloves. I would literally make myself sick to my stomach thinking about how my food was going to smell and taste of latex gloves. It was always weird when I was out with friends and had to explain why I didn't want to eat Subway. I usually made up a good excuse; few people knew my real reason for not wanting to eat there. It was also a pain to beg my parents to bring me something else whenever they were bringing Subway home. They eventually began to treat my dislike of Subway like an allergy, it was rare that anyone in my family ate it when I was around. By the time I was in high school I was frequenting Quiznos, and didn't mind their use of gloves when preparing my food. I still wouldn't eat at Subway though. In fact my phobia had practically disappeared, except for the fact that I couldn't overcome eating at Subway. It wasn't until the summer after my freshman year when I was staying with my friend Sally in Huntsville that I finally gave it another chance. We were meeting her parents for lunch at Subway, and not wanting to seem impolite I didn't mention the fact that I hated eating there. I nerviously watched them prepare my sandwhich, they seemed to be using different gloves, latex free gloves even. But I was still dreading having to eat it. I sucked it up and ate my first Subway sandwich since I was eleven. It was amazing, even better than Quiznos. I have loved Subway ever since. Luckily after my freshman year of college my parents moved near a much nicer and much cleaner Subway. I eat there all the time. I'll never know why my phobia of latex gloves stemmed from Subway or how I managed to go eight years without eating it.